Higurashi no naku koro ni kai chapter 1

Chapter 1: Disaster Awakening (episodes 1-5)

So, I am finally starting the second season! Perhaps I will never catch up now for this season, but I certainly have a chance to catch up with everyone for the third season, which from what I heard is coming out sometime this year. I also have to mention that the first episode of this season doesn’t actually belong to this chapter, but lazy as I am I didn’t want to make an individual post about it. The first episode basically just took place in the future after a whole bunch of incidents that happened to the town. It basically just brought up some of the theories about the misfortunes of the village. We also got to see Rena as an adult, though I think she looked cuter as a kid.

Anyway, for this chapter they pretty much only focused on Rika, who is aware that she has died several times and she finds it really boring (I don’t blame her for being bored of getting killed all the time). We mostly see a whole bunch of scenes from the first season, but they are shown from a different view and made sense of. Though, by the last episode of course we have one of those class higurashi endings, yet from all the climaxes of the last season, this one shows something different and is still unique from the others.

Now that it is the new season, the new thing isn’t only the story, but they changed many other things. The animation also changed a bit, it is only a subtle change (which is a good thing), and it now looks more realistic and prettier than it did before. Also the opening changed, I already got so used to the last one it is going to take me a while till I really start to love it, but it is already starting to grow on me. Oh, and something else that I almost forgot is that Shion is now part of the club and she goes to the same school as all the friends, which is really fun because now all the characters are together! I also still believe that this season is going to focus more on Rika because she seems to be a really important to the story and possibly is the key to some of the missing links to the stor. Though, I really hope that this season isn’t going to just repeat all that cotton drifting festival over and over again.

Throughout this chapter I felt bad for Satoko because her life really sucks. Both her and Rika’s parents have died, but at least the village people like rika, unlike Satoko who is ignored and insulted just for her parent’s opinions when they were alive, which is something completely out of her control. Something about her that disturbs me though, is that she has massive fangs! Especially when she laughs! It is kind of funny actually…

Overall a great first chapter! I can’t wait to see where this story is planning on going. Something that was really cute in this chapter was when Rika was advancing Satoko that “in times like these, you just have to smile” while she was forcing a smile on Satoko’s face, it was so cute! I really just can’t wait to see what this season is going to be about and the mysteries that are going to be solved!